


The Last . . . But Never Alone

by beetle



Series: Under Moonlight, Well-Met: A Dragon Age Origins Series [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Darkspawn, First Time Hand Jobs, Korcari Wilds, M/M, Ostagar, Rescue, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-10-07 05:44:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10353480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: The Battle of Ostagar and the Retaking of Ishal Tower. And the aftermath.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stitchcasual](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stitchcasual/gifts).



> Notes/Warnings: Mentions of minor character death. Spoilers for Dragon Age: Origins.

Frowning, Daelyn watched Alistair watch _Duncan_ stride off after King Cailan and Teyrn Loghain.

 

“Alistair?” he questioned softly, worriedly. The other Warden merely shook his head to forestall any further interrogatives.

 

“Let’s just get to the Tower, Daelyn,” he muttered, staring after Duncan with angry, but concerned eyes. He was clearly not happy to be spending the battle manning the beacon at the Tower of Ishal, but he just as clearly wasn’t willing to disobey Duncan. “It may not be the most glamorous job, but we’d best not dawdle.”

 

Nodding once, Daelyn turned toward the other end of the encampment. “Right. But I have a quick good-bye to say, first.”

 

Daelyn noted Alistair’s surprise, and that it was tinged with something that might be jealousy, as he strode away toward the Kennels. But the other Warden followed after with curiosity, and without question.

 

#

 

“You know . . . I thought you were going to say good-bye to . . . a friend you’d made, perhaps,” Alistair said as, caparisoned in weapons and armor, they hurried toward the bridge less than ten minutes later.

 

“I was, actually,” Daelyn said, thinking of the sick hound that hadn’t even had twelve hours to properly rest and heal. The Mabari hounds had all been gone by the time the meeting with King Cailan had ended, and that included the hound Daelyn had risked his life for. “Unfortunately, as so often happens, I was too late.”

 

Alistair made a commiserative sound, reaching out to squeeze Daelyn’s shoulder briefly. “Best get used to it. Especially in the lives of Grey Wardens, there’re instances when we don’t get to say our good-byes in time.”

 

“Indeed.” Mind still on the poor, wounded hound, Daelyn momentarily recalled the deserted, abandoned look of the empty kennels. Of the empty _camp_. Neither man nor beast able to fight or lift a weapon had been spared the battle ahead.

 

 _And things must look desperate, indeed, to take an ill hound into battle. Even one so clever and capable_ , Daelyn had thought as he’d leaned for a moment on the post of the kennel-gate while Alistair watched him with questions in his eyes. Daelyn had spared a moment to send a prayer to Andraste for the hounds and the kennel master. For them _all_.

 

 _May we be safe, kind and forgiving Andraste. Through your loving intercession on our behalf, may we survive the night whole and intact_.

 

Then, with a small, uncertain smile for Alistair, Daelyn strode off toward their tent to prepare. Alistair was quick to follow after: a source of silent, but tacit support. . . .

 

“I had no idea that the, er . . . _friend_ in question was a hound!”

 

Now, Daelyn glanced at the other Warden, catching a sheepish expression on Alistair’s usually composed face. “Is that so?”

 

“Oh, indeed,” Alistair admitted almost blithely, but the glance he sent Daelyn’s way was a bit lowering and chagrined. “I thought perhaps that guard of the Teyrn’s, whose eyes have been following you about camp at least since I’ve met you, might’ve warranted a . . . fare-thee-well.”

 

Daelyn blinked, slowing his stride for just a moment before catching up to Alistair again. “You mean that tall, swarthy fellow who’s puffed up about guarding a noble’s tent?” When Alistair nodded once, tersely, Daelyn snorted. “Nevyn is . . . certainly dedicated to his lord and was very forthcoming with _me_ —”

 

“I’ll bet,” Alistair muttered, and Daelyn flushed, remembering how he’d used his growing powers of persuasion to goad the choleric guard into speaking more than was wise for a man of his station . . . and daring more, too, by summoning his lord to meet a raw Warden-recruit of no name or fame. “Many are the eyes I’ve noticed following the newest Mage of the Grey Wardens around camp with open speculation and . . . covetousness. This _Nevyn_ simply hides it poorly.”

 

“I have no idea why he—or anyone else, for that matter—would pay me the least little bit of attention. But Nevyn and I are _not_ friends. Nor anything else,” Daelyn added pointedly, which garnered Alistair’s considering glance. He went on. “Besides that poor Mabari hound, _you’re_ my only . . . friend in this place.”

 

“Well,” Alistair said finally as they turned the corner that led onto the bridge. A small, pleased smile tugged his mouth for a moment as he said: “ _Well_ ,” again. But only for a moment.

 

Because the bridge was all fire and chaos.

 

#

 

“You—you’re Grey Wardens, aren’t you?!” a frantic Tower Guard demanded as Alistair, half-carrying Daelyn—who’d been injured . . . glanced on the right side by something large, flaming, and catapulted at the bridge, and which had killed a guard past whom they’d run—straggled into the Tower, the former solicitous of the latter who, thanks to his hastily completed Rock Shield spell, was still alive to appreciate Alistair’s concern.

 

 _I should be dead_ , a small, quietly hysterical part of his mind kept whispering over and over, as it rocked and shuddered, shocked beyond all usefulness. _I should be lying on that bridge, dead_.

 

The rest of Daelyn, however, took a moment to cast a quick spell of Healing—the only one he knew, at present—and hope that it worked well enough and thoroughly enough that he’d be up to what he sensed lay ahead.

 

“Yes, we are,” Alistair rasped firmly, one strong arm supporting Daelyn as he tried to walk off the worst effects of being hit by flaming detritus and focus on his hurriedly-cast spell of healing. Despite his rough voice and grim face, Alistair’s grip was careful and worried. “Why aren’t you at your post?”

 

“Because the Tower—it’s been taken, ser!” the Guard exclaimed, just as a soldier came running down the stairs as if all the darkspawn in Hell were after him. Daelyn suddenly had a feeling that might not be far from the truth.

 

He straightened as the soldier, breathing hard and holding his great-sword with a hand that shook, drew even with them.

 

“The darkspawn!” he huffed out, barely able to catch his breath to do so. “They’ve overrun the Tower! They rose up out of the floors and began slaughtering all in their path!”

 

Alistair swore as he exchanged a disconcerted glance with Daelyn, who nodded once, grimly, but still managed a fond smile.

 

“I’m alright?” he said, then smiled a little wider. “Rather, I’ll _be_ alright.”

 

“Are you sure?” Alistair asked with torn tenderness, reaching out to brush dirty, scraped fingers down Daelyn’s almost-as-dirty cheek. Daelyn allowed himself to lean into the touch for a moment before straightening and squaring his narrow shoulders.

 

“I’m sure. I’ll be ready just in time for the fighting.”

 

“That may be a lot sooner than you think, little Mage,” Alistair said, his fingers falling away from Daelyn’s cheek reluctantly, sadly. “Far sooner, certainly, than we’d anticipated.”

 

“Such is life,” Daelyn replied dryly, though he felt a thrill of anticipation-laced fear sizzle through his tired, wired, still-healing body. “‘Tis time for me to be rock-hard, again.”

 

Eyes suddenly twinkling with mischief, and mouth twitching, Alistair started to speak. But Daelyn, with speed and a soft moan, silenced the warrior with a brief, teasing kiss.

 

“Save it for _after_ the battle, jester.”

 

“But, of course,” Alistair agreed on Daelyn’s lips, one arm wrapping around Daelyn’s waist to squeeze him quick and tight, before his hand slid down to the curve of Daelyn’s behind, squeezed that, too, then . . . let go. “I’ll be saving lots of things for after the battle, my lovely enchanter.”

 

The promise hung in the intense, electrified air between them for a long moment, before the soldier cleared his throat. Recalled to their purpose and surroundings, Daelyn and Alistair stepped apart, flushed and flustered, and turned to face the two survivors of the darkspawn assault.

 

“Take us to the beacon by the fastest route,” Alistair commanded the Guard, who nodded and bowed his head momentarily. “You’re both with us. We'll have each other’s backs, on this night.”

 

“Yes, sers,” both Tower Guard and soldier replied as Daelyn—feeling much revived, somehow, even for having cast a healing spell—cast another spell: that of his Rock Armor.

 

Then, the four men were on the move.

 

#

 

“Maker’s _breath_!” Alistair cried, yanking his sword free of one of a seemingly endless barrage of genlock and hurlock darkspawn. He didn’t even bother to clean or sheath the weapon, merely kicking the corpse of the dead hurlock and swearing. “What are these darkspawn doing ahead of the _rest_ of the horde? There wasn’t supposed to be any resistance _here_!”

 

Daelyn silently agreed, but out loud, for the benefit of Alistair and the panting, horrified Guard and soldier, he grinned. It felt too-wide and somewhat ghastly: the rictus of a dead man who had but to lie down and accept his fate. “Weren’t you complaining that you _wouldn’t_ get to fight?”

 

Alistair opened his mouth to mitigate his own words . . . then sighed and chuckled wearily. “Yes. I did. You’re right, of course. I guess there _is_ a silver lining, here, if you think about it,” he mused finally, squatting to quickly wipe his long-sword on the leather armor— _not_ studded—of his fallen foe, before bouncing back up and sheathing the fearsome weapon, and returning Daelyn’s grin with a sharkishly charming one of his own.

 

“There. I _knew_ you’d see it my way, with just a bit of . . . perspective,” Daelyn said as Alistair approached him, kicking aside the head of a genlock to do so. The taller, broader Warden stopped inside Daelyn’s personal space, their bodies inches apart, to gaze down into Daelyn’s eyes.

 

“Could do with a bit of something else, other than _perspective_ ,” he murmured, low and rough. _Hungry_. He leaned in close, averting his face at the last moment, so that what could have been a kiss was a humid, teasing whisper on Daelyn’s cheek. “When this mess is over, lovely, I’m going to lay you down on the first bed I come across—I don’t care _whose_ it is—and ride your pretty cock straight through till sunrise.”

 

Daelyn made a slightly strangled sound and flushed, one hand—the one _not_ holding the heavy darkspawn staff—came up to settle on Alistair’s shoulder. “ _Alistair_. . . .”

 

“Then . . . _then_ , little mage, you’re going to ride _mine_ till _moonrise_ ,” the other Warden breathed, leaning back, surveying Daelyn with a possessive, hot gaze. “Until the only ache either of us still feel is each other.”

 

“Yes,” Daelyn sighed, nodding once, still looking up into Alistair’s dirty-bloody-scraped face and flushing even more deeply as he remembered their assignation earlier in the tent they were to share.

 

Nothing beyond kissing and some petting had happened—with Alistair squeezing and stroking Daelyn’s burgeoning erection slowly, working him to near-full hardness, then encouraging Daelyn to (shyly, but enthusiastically) do the same . . . until they both recalled their dire duty at nearly the same moment—but what little had gone on between them had stoked a fire in Daelyn that he began to suspect would now never be quenched.

 

He wanted, more than anything, to lay down in a clean, quiet space with Alistair and see what happened when _duty_ did not interfere.

 

“Sers,” the soldier began awkwardly, reluctantly, just as a series of terrible, rage-filled cries sounded from down the corridor for which they were bound. Exchanging glances and dangerous smiles, Daelyn and Alistair each took a step back from the other.

 

“At any rate, we need to hurry. We need to get up to the top of the Tower and light the signal-fire in time!” Alistair drew his sword again, striding grim and confident toward their waiting enemies. Daelyn, the soldier, and the Tower Guard followed, also readying their preferred weapons. “Teyrn Loghain will be waiting for that signal!”

 

 _And he and his men will turn the tide of this Blight, crushing it in its nascent state, before it can be anything more than a troublesome, occasionally fatal exertion_ , Daelyn thought with his customary cautious optimism.

 

The next free moment he had to think—but would never remember, ever-after, try though he might—would be when, looking down at the battle in the valley below. He would have the realization that he, and worse, _Alistair_ , would die for _naught_ , betrayed by a bitter, cowardly noble who’d disobeyed his king and left his fellow Fereldens to die at the hands of ten thousand darkspawn.

 

“ _Alistair!_ ” Daelyn cried out as he was felled by enchanted and poisoned bolts, one of which struck not far from his broken heart. His already weakening Rock Armor spell collapsed, and he fell to the floor near the lit beacon and its incredible heat as, around him, more darkspawn converged and began to overwhelm the three men who remained standing.

 

One even loomed over Daelyn’s wounded form, ax raised to strike a killing bow that would cleave the Mage’s head in twain.

 

 _I wish I could’ve kissed him one last time_ , was Daelyn’s thought before oblivion—with a flash of light off the blade of the ax, a swoosh of darkness that robbed him of sight, and a distant cry like that of an enormous falcon—came to claim him forever. Came to take him to a place beyond the pain of the bolts lodged in his undefended flesh. _But let me nonetheless go to my doom and my Maker with his_ name _, if nothing else, on my lips:_

_“Alistair!”_

_#_

 

Awareness returned suddenly, without alarum or fanfare.

 

One moment, there was nothing, the next, Daelyn’s eyes were open and he was staring up at the thatched roof of a brightly-lit hut that smelt of many herbs and resinous woods—chiefly _waras_ -root and cedar.

 

Daelyn took a deep breath and let it out as a single word: “Alistair?”

 

“The suspicious, dim-witted fellow who was with you before?” a familiar voice asked innocently, amused and on the verge of laughter. “He’s fine . . . he's outside by the creek and annoying mother with his sulking, and pouting. Is he your lover?”

 

Turning his head toward the sound of the voice, Daelyn found himself in a small bedroom, cluttered with potted and hanging herbs, and many pieces of cedar furniture—neither of which was surprising because the Korcari Wilds had a proliferation of both—including a rocking chair by Daelyn’s bedside, in which sat Morrigan of the Wilds. She was smirking, her knowing, golden eyes dancing with mirth. Daelyn flushed.

 

“ _That_ is _none_ of your affair,” he huffed, as his face turned redder and redder.

 

“Ah . . . so not _quite_ lovers, _yet_. Though _not_ for lack of trying,” Morrigan guessed easily, and Daelyn could only gape at her as she chuckled. “War and battle can, indeed, lure one away from life’s . . . gentler pursuits and amusements.”

 

“I—I—I am _not_ having this conversation with you!” Daelyn sputtered. Morrigan outright laughed, now.

 

“On the contrary, Warden, we _are_ , in fact, having this conversation as we speak!” she quipped and Daelyn huffed again, finally more offended than he was embarrassed by Morrigan’s prying into his personal matters.

 

“I—you—agh!” Daelyn just gave up and let her laugh at him for a minute, before he ventured: “But Alistair’s . . . _alright_ , then?” At Morrigan’s suddenly solemn, but affirmative nod, Daelyn sagged in relief, closing his eyes for a few moments to prevent tears of sheer joy from falling and to send up a quick prayer of thanks to the Lady. “He’s . . . thank you, Andraste, for your merciful intercession.”

 

“‘Twas more _Mother_ , than Andraste, who interceded to save you both,” Morrigan noted tartly, one long eyebrow quirking up. “Though, as I’ve said, your . . . friend isn’t taking it well.”

 

“Not taking _what_ well?” Daelyn asked, his own low voice as even and modulated as usual. He felt uncommonly well-rested and in good repair. Better than he’d felt since before his Harrowing, actually, though that trial seemed a lifetime ago.

 

Morrigan watched him sit up slowly, neither offering to help, nor insisting he lie back down. It was only when Daelyn was upright and looking around the bedroom in which he’d found himself—then down at his clean, clearly naked form, covered only by a thin, cotton quilt—that she spoke. “Not taking well the fact that the man who was to respond to your signal quit the field without engaging the enemy. Those he abandoned were massacred, and your lover . . . has had a hard time accepting that. That, nor the fact that in the two days since you were brought here, Mother has not allowed him to _see_ you.” Snorting, Morrigan leaned back in her chair. “He probably thinks you’ve been reduced to nothing but bits of meat and bone in our stew-pots.”

 

Daelyn rolled his eyes. “Well. Won’t he be glad to know that he hasn’t been having me for dinner, as it were, for the past two nights?”

 

“Oh, aye,” Morrigan replied, leaning forward, now, and standing. She crossed her arms over her impressive and barely-covered bosom, her opaque gaze sweeping over Daelyn leisurely. “Mother wished to see you once you awoke—which you took your sweet time in doing, I might add. I shall inform her you’re once more in the world of the waking.”

 

“Wait!” Daelyn held out a hand but did not touch Morrigan as she started to turn away. The tall woman paused and looked back at him, still amused.

 

“Yes?”

 

“I . . . have some questions,” Daelyn said hopefully, then glanced down at his naked form, once more, quickly taking in new scars and marks, some of which cut across Daelyn’s various tattoos of Warding and Protection, bisecting glyphs and runes without discrimination. He sighed. “The first of which is . . . may I please have my clothes back?”

 

#

 

“See?” Morrigan’s mother called as Daelyn—newly-dressed, but sans his weapons and armor—stepped out into the bright, late-morning sunlight. She was standing on a small hillock near the bank of a shallow creek not ten yards from her hut. And beyond her, pacing right at the edge of the bank, a look of absent irritation on his handsome profile, was. . . .

 

“Alistair,” Daelyn breathed around his heart, which had apparently taken up residence in his throat. Just behind him, he could feel Morrigan’s customary amusement and knowing gaze, as it ticked between himself and a still distracted and pacing Alistair.

 

“Here is your fellow Grey Warden!” Morrigan’s mother announced, also seeming richly amused. Alistair stopped pacing a moment later, looking up at her, confused. Then his gaze ticked to where Daelyn stood, frozen and hopeful.

 

After another several moments of stunned acknowledgement and shared feeling, Alistair was barreling toward Daelyn laughing, arms wide.

 

Daelyn grinned, and laughed, too, as he was caught up in Alistair’s strong arms and lifted off his feet—then swung around in a circle, until he was dizzy, and clutching at Alistair with his arms and thighs. He wrapped them around the other Warden’s neck and hips, respectively, as Alistair hugged him tight and close, then leaned back to kiss him.

 

The kiss was hard and urgent and demanding, at first—Daelyn could barely keep up with it, between trying to laugh and trying to _breathe_ —then it slowed to something softer and easy and giving. It ended on a poignant and yearning note. They parted—but not far—with a soft sigh from each of them, and only when Morrigan laughed and her mother cleared her throat pointedly.

 

“You’re . . . you’re alive!” Alistair whispered shakily, his voice hoarse and rough. “I thought you dead, for sure, and gracing one of their stew-pots.”

 

Daelyn rolled his eyes and snorted, leaning his forehead against Alistair’s. “I appreciate your concern, Warden Alistair, but I’m fine. It’ll take more than a horde of darkspawn to keep _me_ down!”

 

“Indeed?” Alistair chuckled and stole another kiss, slick and sly, teasing and tantalizing. “No matter how many times I taste of those sweet lips of yours, this still doesn’t seem _real_ . . . if it weren’t for Morrigan’s mother, we’d be dead on top of that Tower!”

 

“Do not talk about me as if I am not present, lad,” Morrigan’s mother’s chided from very close by, to Daelyn’s left. He and Alistair looked over at her, faces still pressed together, but cheek to cheek, now. So, Daelyn could feel the heat of Alistair’s embarrassed flush.

 

“I . . . I didn’t _mean_ . . . but what do we _call_ you? You never told us your name, you know!”

 

Morrigan’s mother smiled, her pale brown eyes flashing as she measured the Wardens for a few seconds, before speaking. “Names are pretty, but useless things. The Chasind folk call me Flemeth. I suppose that will do, for now.”

 

“ _Flemeth_?” Alistair exclaimed, straightening as he looked at Daelyn. The mage shrugged. The name meant nothing, to him. They both looked back to Morrigan’s mother, though it was Alistair who continued speaking. “ _The Flemeth_ from the legends? Maker’s _bones_! Daveth was right—you’re the Witch of the Wilds, are you not?”

 

“And what does _that_ mean?” Flemeth retorted sharply. “I know a bit of magic, and it has served _you_ both well, _has it not_?”

 

“Yes, it has,” Daelyn said before Alistair could reply, his arms around the other Warden’s neck tightening even as he let go his grip of Alistair’s hips. When his feet touched the ground again, he leaned into Alistair’s embrace—the other Warden’s hands, which had been braced under Daelyn’s thighs, slid up to grasp his backside possessively, and without shame—no longer caring if Morrigan smirked until her face fell off. “And speaking of _why_ you saved us. . . ?”

 

Flemeth smiled again, smug and mysterious. “Well,” she drew out roundly. “We cannot have _all_ the Grey Wardens dying at once, now, can we? _Someone_ has to deal with these darkspawn.”

 

Alistair snorted. “ _Someone_ , meaning?”

 

“Why, the _remaining_ Grey Wardens, of course!” Flemeth was neither moved nor cowed by Alistair’s anxious cynicism. “And should you, of course, choose to uphold your duties, I will offer council, as I am able, to you both.”

 

Daelyn and Alistair looked at each other. The latter’s hands, now on the former’s waist, squeezed reassuringly . . . though whom Alistair was trying to reassure more was up for debate.

 

“The _remaining_ . . . meaning the _last_ ,” Alistair mumbled, his voice bereft of life and sere with grief. Daelyn leaned their foreheads together again and kissed Alistair’s face: both of his cheeks, then his lips, chaste and sweet.

 

“The last,” he agreed quietly, sadly, feeling the weight of that awesome responsibility on his narrow shoulders. “But we’re _not_ alone. _Never_ alone. And never  _powerless_. We have might _and_ right, on our side . . . and a keen and cunning Warden, with a hapless, oft-injured mage watching his back every step of the way.”

 

Alistair chuckled, though it sounded a bit like a soft sob. “Right . . . how could I forget?”

 

“Quite silly of you to, _I_ think. But I will live and die by that duty, and my duty to the good people of Thedas,” Daelyn swore, carding a hand through Alistair’s soft, spiky blond hair. The older Warden sighed.

 

“As will I, Warden Daelyn. As will I. To my dying breath and beyond . . . I am a Grey Warden of Thedas. I will uphold that duty.”

 

Smiling, Daelyn kissed Alistair again, light and joyous. Alistair prolonged the kiss, his talented tongue seeking and gaining entrance to Daelyn’s mouth, possessing and plundering it like a poorly-locked chest.

 

When the kiss ended, they were both breathless, but Alistair managed to say: “So . . . we have decided we are Grey Wardens and that we’ll continue to single-handedly save Thedas from millennia-worth of its own poor decisions. Huzzah!”

 

“Yes. Huzzah,” Daelyn agreed, a warm, proud feeling swelling up within him, heart, soul, and gut. It only increased in intensity and warmth when Alistair laughed, bright and almost care-free.

 

“Excellent!”

 

Daelyn grinned for a moment, then turned a somewhat soberer face to Flemeth, who was waiting patiently for their attention to return to the grave matters at hand. “I, er . . . don’t suppose you could offer some, er, _help_ , along with that council you offered us?”

 

Flemeth’s smile was laconic and dry. “Now that you mention it, I _do_ have one more thing to offer. The _best_ possible help I could give you, in fact.”

 

And with that, she glanced over at a smirking Morrigan, whose brows shot up in confusion and surprise. That smirk was slowly replaced by an expression of dismay and upset.

 

Daelyn and Alistair shared another glance and the same sneaking suspicion that as . . . _interesting_ as their lives had been recently—between demons and darkspawn, kings and the Korcari Wilds—things were about to get downright _strange_.

 

END

**Author's Note:**

> Liking this, so far? Let me know in comments!
> 
> And come see me on [The Tumbles](http://beetle-ships-it-all.tumblr.com)!


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